State’s dialysis centers rate high, with some exceptions

By Lisa Chedekel, Conn. Health I-Team Writer

Updated 10:09 pm, Sunday, September 13, 2015

Five dialysis facilities in Connecticut received low quality-of-care scores under a new Medicare rating system, including one center cited for a high death rate, while 11 facilities received the highest rating possible, federal data show.

Connecticut has 45 dialysis facilities in the Medicare program, all but four of them for-profit. Of the 41 for-profit centers, the majority are owned by two chains — DaVita, which has 24, and Fresenius Medical Care, with 13.

The data show that 10 of the highest-ranked facilities are owned by DaVita and one by Fresenius. Among the five lowest-ranked centers is the nonprofit UConn Dialysis Center — privately owned, with no connection to the university — which is the only facility in the state reporting a higher-than-average patient death rate.

Medicare began rating dialysis facilities earlier this year on a scale of one to five stars, based on nine measures of quality of care. The measures include mortality and hospitalization rates of patients, as well as rates of hypercalcemia, catherization of more than 90 days, and the percentage of dialysis patients who had enough wastes removed from their blood during dialysis.